


Ink Out

by Cindercat13



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-08-28 04:11:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16716377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cindercat13/pseuds/Cindercat13
Summary: A few little side stories from the main story of Toon Out





	1. Ink Out - Hidden Knowledge (Ch: 1) "Drafted"

Henry was worried.  
He was worried for himself and his father, war had officially begun. The grate war was upon them all. And he was worried that him or his father would be forced to go.  
“Henry! You’re going to be late!” His sister yelled from down stairs, “coming!” he yelled back.  
He quickly got dressed and ran down the stairs combing his hair and holding his case in hand. “Harrison Dane Stein, how many times have I told you to not do this every morning?” his mother scolded him, “phmem?” Henry said with a bit of bread in his mouth. “Come on son, that time of the day again.” His father said reading the newspaper from the couch, “yeah I know I have to get to work you don’t need to rub it in,” Henry said finishing the bread.  
  
His father looked at him from over the couch with an arched brow. It then clicked to Henry what he meant, “Oh… that,” Henry said, his voice suddenly deflating with disappointment.  
A new routine the family had started ever since the war had begun, check if a yellow envelope was in the mail pile. Henry looked over to the letters that where under the mail slot and he picked them up and brought them over to the counter. The whole family stood in silence as Henry moved through the letters, the atmosphere was tense and dreadful, like that saying the anticipation of fear is worse than the fear itself.   
Finally Henry finished going through the letters. No yellow ones.  
  
“YEAH!!” The family cheered and cried as they hugged each other over the table. No one was going to war today.   
“Okay people I’ve got to go,” Henry said with a smile on his face and going out the door, “See you later,” his family yelled back at him as he started running to his work.  
As he exited his neighbourhood and entered the town shops he saw a crowd of men around a poster with an army cap in the middle and a sentence saying- “If the cap fits you then join the army to-day” Henry just took a little look then checked his watch and started running again.  
  
Finally he got to work and set his stuff at his desk, he then walked to the break room and punched in, then walked back to his desk. He started looking over some model sheets and began to draw something for the upcoming episode, just then Wally walked in and saw Henry drawing away.  
“You weren’t here just a minuet ago,” he said leaning against his mop with his hands on top of the handle and resting his chin on top of his hands with a smug look on his face. Henry looked behind himself and saw Wally in the hall, “oh, hi Wally.” Henry said immediately going back to his work. Wally wanted to start a little conversation so he tried something else. “You need to watch where you put your ink, you must have knocked it over last night because I found a broken ink well on the ground.” Wally said coming off his mop and standing there. Henry then franticly looked around his desk for an ink well but found none. “Well fuck,” Henry said “you kiss your mother with that mouth?” Wally responded with. That put a smile on Henry’s face as he started chuckling a little. “Thanks Wally,” Henry said standing up and leaving Wally to finish cleaning around his desk, he walking over to the ink machine room and grabbed a new ink well from one of the shelfs. He then heard a deep creek and looked up. An ink pipe then just burst over him and then he was drenched in ink, he really admits the ink machine was not one of Joey’s best ideas.  
  
He then walked back to his desk, trailing ink foot steps behind him. He then accidently bumped Into Grant and he dropped all of his papers he was holding in his arms. “Henry!” Grant yelled at him, “Gezz sorry Grant,” Henry said helping him pick up the papers. Grant to a big breathing in and then sighed out through his mouth, “No, I’m sorry I shouldn’t have snapped” he apologised.   
They picked up all of the scattered papers, but then a cluster of papers catched Henry’s eye. “Hey Grant what are these about,” Henry asked reading the papers. “Oh… Mister Joey-genius upstairs is asking this company called G.E.N.T to help with the ink machine pipe problem,” Grant said taking the papers of Henry’s hands, but for some reason he doesn’t sound that happy about it. “That should be good right? We can finally cut back on so many problems here.” Henry said. “No it’s not because we are this close to being shut down, it’s like he never realises that his “ideas” are so big that we always cash out” Grant said. “And here’s the very dumb thing. We should have been making cut backs months ago,” he continued.   
Henry knew he needed to talk to Joey about this in person, he was the only person that Joey would listen to. “I’ll go talk to Joey about this myself.” He said grabbing one sheet of paper off Grant “wait, really?!” Grant said immediately lighting up with a smile, “Yeah… I really need to talk to Joey about this. And can you go to the archives and hand me one of the folders about Bendy’s designs?” Henry asked, “I’ll call that an- “in return” thing.” Grant said and walked off. Henry then saw Wally leaving the hallway to his desk when he stopped to look at Henry and look behind him. “OH COME THE FUCK ON!!! I just cleaned this floor!” Wally yelled, “Language,” Henry said as he started walking to Joey’s office in the top levels.  
  
He then walked all the way to Joey’s top office and knocked on the door. “Who is it?” Joey’s voice came from the other side of the door, “It’s me” Henry said back “oh! Come in!” Joey’s voice suddenly piped up from Henrys.   
Henry walked in and came up to Joey’s desk and place the peace of paper he got from Grant on it. “What’s this about asking a company to help with the ink machine?” Henry asked. “Because I thought it would help solve a lot of problems that everyone has been complaining about,” Joey responded with “well it’s not helping the problem with are money problem, the thing that Grant has been complaining about” said Henry “and apparently we were meant to be making cuts months ago.” He elaborated.   
Joey was about to protest and pointed his finger up at Henry but then stopped himself mid-act as he realised what face Henry was making, it was his face of- “you’re really in no point to argue” and when he really just thought it over, it might have not been the best idea after all.  
  
Joey dropped his confidence and then dropped back into his wheel chair in defeat. “Okay, then what do you suggest we do then?” Joey asked. “Well we can’t do anything now about it. But for now I recon we focuses on getting some money back. Which means no more “big ideas” and if you get one, for the love of god run it by me first, okay?” Henry said making sure Joey understood. “Okay, fine!” Joey said throwing his hands up.   
He then sighed and looked back at Henry, “so what do you think we need to do to get more money?” Joey asked. Henry thought for a bit and started setting boundaries. First; no cutting people, second; no putting back pay checks. Then Henry got an idea, what if they just made better episodes? “What if we just made better episodes? It could solve the money problem with in a time of months?” Henry suggested.  
  
Joey’s face lit up with a smile, Henry could tell he did something good. “Harrison Stein, there are times I wonder why you’re not owner of this studio! And why you don’t take it of my hands.” Joey said with joy in his voice he was practically jumping in his wheel chair. “Oh gosh,” Henry said being filled with embarrassment from the praise that Joey was giving him. “Okay now what do we change from what we normally do?” Joey asked, “how about we bring in more action into it? Shore a bit more work but it should be worth it to get more money back,” Henry said. “Grate idea! Let’s get started right away!” Joey said.

 

* * *

 

  
  
And it would have been fine if it was just that, but.  
Weeks dragged on and turned into a few months and still no one had any good ideas for the cartoons, and if anything, now they were so far behind on money that every person’s pay-check in the studio had been cut down. And that didn’t exclude Henry or Joey pay ether.  
Within a month or so from then the studio would be shut down. Everyone was becoming desperate for anything to happen to this studio, they all wanted a miracle. Even Henry was getting worried for the studio.  
  
He wrapped up another day and started walking home and into the night. When he saw a man walking down the same path with tears in his eyes, he looked down to see what was in the man’s hands and he saw a yellow letter. That guy was being drafted to the war, no wonder he was crying.  
Henry kept walking and came to his home, he opened the door expecting to see his sister and mother talking in the kitchen and his father in his chair and reading something.  
But he was greeted with his father giving him his classical stair-down of disappointment with him tapping his foot.  
  
“Harrison. You have a lot of explaining to do,” his father said gabbing him by the wrist and pulling him up the stairs to his room. He then opened the door and revealed Henry’s room littered with papers and it stinked of ink, there where graphs and charts along his walls and his more recent pay checks on his bed. His room looked like it belonged to a mad man.  
Henry’s father looked at him with his brows still arched, but he did not face him.  
“It’s just some work stuff,” Henry said. “I had gotten an education to Harrison, I know what those graphs are about. And what did you do to have your pay-checks docked?” his father asked coldly, “I didn’t have my pay-checks docked, we had to cut everyone’s pay back so we could keep the studio up.” Henry responded with. “Well find a way to keep those numbers up, because I can’t house the family by myself anymore. I need help with this Harrison.” Henry’s father said and walked back down the stairs.  
  
Henry then just realized how desperate he was to still keep his family under a roof.  
He knew Joey would never forgive him for this, if he directly told him he wanted to go to war out of his own will. So he started hatching a plan to keep the studio out of his hair. He when’t searching in the kitchen for their paper bin and found the form to sign into the war. He grabbed a pencil and started writing his details on it, his father catched him doing this but he hadn’t made his presence known yet.  
He peaked over Henry’s shoulder and watched what he was doing, a quick gasp then gave away his position to Henry. His head spun around and saw his father with a dread and shocked filled face, with tears building up in his eyes as he stared at Henry.  
“Harrison Dane Stein, what in god’s name are you doing putting a pencil to that paper?” he asked with a shaky voice, “I thought it would be an idea to go, and send back stories to the studio so we could get back a lot of money?” Henry said innocently at his father who was shaking like a leaf in front of him.  
  
His father then collected his composure and took a few deep breaths and looked at his son with a stone face, “if you think I will let you go alone then you are far to wrong my son.” His father said pulling a smile at him.   
His father then grabbed the other paper from the bin and started writing his information down on it, as he did that Henry when’t to their neighbour’s house and knocked at the door. A man in his thirty’s opened it and looked at Henry.  
“Oh, hi Henry how are you doing?” he asked, “oh good, um… I know this might be a really odd question but do you mind if I have your telegram?” Henry asked, “Um… …why would you want my telegram?” he asked. “I just want to use it for a joke on one of my co-workers,” Henry said, “Oh, okay then” he handed Henry his telegram and was about to close the door when Henry put his foot in the door. “And… I’m sorry for your loss…” Henry said and walked back to his house.  
  
Henry erased the writing of his neighbours name with acetone and writ it with his own, making sure no one could recognize his hand writing. He then writ a letter to Joey and mainly all of the studio as a whole and folded it with the trick telegram.  
The next morning before anyone woke up he ran out the house and to his work, no one was there yet so he came up to Joey’s office and placed the folded papers on his desk and then made a dash to his and started cleaning everything. He took all of his stuff and ran back out the studio before anyone knew it.  
  
Over the next few days Henry and his father started packing their stuff to head to training.  
“You two better come back alive,” Linda said, “You know we will,” Henry said giving his sister a bare hug. “Look after are son Joshua,” his mother whispered into his father’s ear as they hugged each other “Don’t worry Delilah I will come back with him still in one peace.” And with that he kissed her and they both waved their female familiar’s good bye.  
  
And that was the last time Delilah ever saw of her husband and her son’s happy, bubbly personality.


	2. Ink Out - Pre-story (Ch: 1 / Part: 1)

_**(I’m here) – pt. 1** _

  
  
  
Henry woke up in his normal routine. He still couldn’t believe his luck.  
He lied about going to World War 1 and faked being drafted to it, at the end that got his father killed. And then he was actually drafted into the second war. The best few years of his life and he was stuck in trenches.   
He could also feel the difference in his personality, he was ones happy, bubbly and in his opinion a bit sassy. But once he stepped foot on that boat, everything went silent. Even his father spotted that out when they were on the trip. It’s one of few last memories he remembers with his age.   
And he also couldn’t believe he would be turning 51 in five months.  
  
“Gezz me and Linda are getting old” Henry said looking up at the sealing from his pillow. He got up and put on his nightgown, then walked downstairs. He still has those grief-filled memories of his mother and sister crying and looking at him walk down the stairs, with a yellow telegram on the kitchen bench. With his name on it.  
Henry pushed those thoughts away and walked into the kitchen, he nearly walked past a letter or two that were on the floor under his mail slot. It couldn’t be a bill he and Linda just paid those, unless it was a letter.  
“Hey maybe Aleksei finally got back to me,” Henry said. And to his surprise he did, but there was also another letter under it.  
  
He opened the one from Aleksei first.  
  
 _“Hallo Henry,  
  
I’m so sorry I haven’t been writing back as quick as I could, I’ve been struggling to look for a job.  
I still can’t believe how kind you are to lend me some money for rent. And it still ponders me. How the hell we went through ended five months ago.  
I must thank you again for saving my ass there. If it weren’t for you, I would be ten feet under long ago. And if I remember correctly your birthday is in five months. And you would be what? 51 right? Wow, you really are like an old man to me.   
  
But jokes aside I’ll come and see you for your B-day, and maybe you can finally introduce me to Linda. (You still haven’t told me if she’s your wife? Daughter? Or anything yet) I’m really looking forward to meeting her.  
  
I’ll see you soon you alter furz,  
\- Aleksei “Stein””_  
  
Henry laughed at the kid's sass, wow was he really becoming that old? He meet the kid in his 40’s for crying out loud.  
He opened the other letter and read it.   
  
“Dear Henry,  
  
It seems like a lifetime since we worked on cartoons together. 30 year’s really slips away, doesn’t it?  
  
If you’re back in town. Come visit the old workshop. There’s something I need to show you.  
  
Your best pal –   
Joey Drew”  
  
Henry could not take his eyes off the page. Joey has finally written to him? After all these years? Henry was a little shocked, to say the least.   
He then snapped back to reality and charged back up to his room. He threw off his nightgown and got dressed.  
He put on a white tank top, black leather pants and his old war boots. He also grabbed his leather jacket.  
He quickly writ a scribbled note and left it on the kitchen bench for Linda to find. He grabbed his helmet running out the door and jumped on his motorcycle. He started it with a heavy stomp and rode off to the studio.  
  
Once he started entering the suburb of his old work, he slowed down a bit, noticing the place looked a little bit like the slumps. “What the heck happened here?” Henry asked himself and kept driving.   
Finally, he came to the parking lot in front of the studio. But something was very off.  
He looked around and took off his helmet, he thought that it was just the tinted plastic that made the world look dark, but the sky was spilled with dark clouds. It made the town look deader than it already was.  
The gates were locked too. Henry grabbed a crow-bar from the back of his motorcycle and smashed it over the lock, it broke off in a second and he opened the gate. It shrieked along the concrete and chugged along the hinges, but he pushed it open. “This could really use some oil,” Henry said.  
  
He pushed his bike in the gate and rested it on the wall next to the front door. And walked in.  
“Alright Joey, I’m here. Let’s see if we can find what you wanted me to see.” Henry said walking down the hall a little. He then stopped and looked around the main area. No one was here. “Hello? Is someone here?” Henry asked aloud. He was only greeted with silence. “Did this place really shut down?” Henry asked to no one in particular. But he kept going.  
He walked down the hall to his desk and saw his chair and table were still there. “Hey, here’s my old desk. (Sigh) I’ve wasted so much time in this chair” Henry said and looked to his right. Right behind his desk was a doorway to other desks.  
  
“Guess they knocked down a wall or two after I left,” Henry looked at how many desks there were. “Guess it took a few people to replace me.” The room was littered with lightbox’s and it reeked of ink, a few things were knocked down, a few shattered inkwells on the floor and a lightbox on its side, but every one of the lightbox’s had power as they were still on. If this place was abandoned shouldn’t the power be out?  
He walked down to the desks and looked over them. There were still some pictures. It looked like everyone just got up and left.  
Henry sat in one of the chairs and held an ink quill in his hand, oh how he loved the feeling of home going through him right now, he didn’t want it to stop.  
  
He then looked to his side and spotted something he often saw on the battlefield. Signs of struggle.  
This struggle was one to get the heck out from this desk. Whoever sat here, wanted to get away in a hurry. They must have knocked down an inkwell and tipped over their lightbox. But what would be so bad that you would shove down your expensive equipment and not come back to check if it was okay? He then realized all of the desks looked something similar, they all had the lightbox’s pushed to the side a little and a few knocked over items.  
  
He looked over to the desk on the far left of the room and saw that a clean picture of Bendy was sitting there, he walked over and looked at it. Bendy was in a sitting position with his legs crossed and smiling up to the sky. Henry then looked to his left and saw that a toilet room was there and had no door, it was just boarded up. “Why would they need one in here?” Henry asked himself.   
He then looked back to the Bendy picture again. But it was in a different position, now Bendy was on his stomach with his legs kicking in the air and his hands on his checks still looking up at the sky.  
  
Henry backed away slowly from the picture and walked back to the main area. He then went to the opposite hallway and walked down.  
The first thing that caught Henry’s attention was how the halls were a little bit different. He had to turn an extra corner to get to the ink machine room, the next was the new ink output schedule on the wall. Henry turned to his right and saw a pipe running along the floor in front of him. He stepped over it and entered a balcony sort of room that had a dark pit in the middle with chains running into it.  
  
“Let’s see what you’re hiding down their old friend,” Henry said looking around.   
He spotted a lift next to a lever that needed two dry cells, he saw one on a shelf and he opened a trunk to get another. He threw the switch and the chains lifted something from the abyss, it was a massive new model of the ink machine. “Oh my god, Joey what have you been doing while I was gone?” Henry said.   
  
He then heard the shutter door from down the hall open.  
He retraced his steps and walked into the new hallways. He remembered these hallways.  
He took a right and walked down the hall when he came walking up to another fork in the road before he was about to turn to his right again a board from the ceiling fell down and made a heavy thump that echoed through the studio's eeriness. “Gah!” Henry yelled.  
  
He looked down at the plank for a few seconds then collected himself and walked on. He came to a room with six pedestals with pictures on walls behind them and on the wall in front of him was a leaver that said “Ink machine”, he didn’t remember there being a switch for the ink machine.  
Henry looked at the pictures along the wall and started to leave the room when he walked back to the fork there was a Bendy cut out. “Ah!” Henry yelled again, “who put this here?!” Henry called out into the studio. He knew someone was here.  
  
He walked past the cutout and looked in front of him.  
There was once a wall where he was looking, now it was a room that had just been knocked out. And right in the center of the room was something that Henry had never seen before.   
He walked closer to get a better look, and what was raised on an operating table was a corps of Boris the Wolf. His chest ripped open and his ribs protruding out and a wrench jammed in for good measure, and with ‘X’s’ in his eyes.  
“Oh my god… Joey, what were you doing?” Henry said in a completely shocked voice, he was at a loss for words.  
He walked up and used two fingers to touch the wolfs shoulder. It felt like real fur just a little damp by the ink. He pulled out the wrench. It made a sickening crunch like opening a coconut and came out spitting ink. “Yuck…” Henry said as he walked away from the dead toon on the table.   
  
He came back to the hall and went in the opposite direction. He turned a corner to find an audio log.  
These things were compulsory for workers as they recorded what they thought of their job or what progress they had been making in what they do. This one had a name on it saying- ‘Wally Franks’.  
Oh good lord did he remember Wally, he was one of his best friends. This audio log was dated after he left the studio so he wanted to see how Wally had been doing.  
  
"At this point, I don't get what Joey's plan is for this company. The animations sure aren't being finished on time anymore, and I certainly don't see why we need this machine. It's noisy, it's messy, and who needs that much ink anyway? Also, get this, Joey had each one of us donate something from our workstations. We put them on these little pedestals in the break room. To help appease the gods, Joey says. Keep things going. I think he's lost his mind, but, hey, he writes the checks. But I tell you what, if one more of these pipes burst, I'm out of here." Wally’s voice played through the little speakers and filled the hall.   
  
That told Henry that they probably did get some money back from the cartoons if Wally said that- “hey, he writes the checks”. That also told him that Joey did start to become wearier with the money if he had been aboul to get a better ink machine. But the thing that Henry was really pondering about was that Joey had been going insane.  
He, immediately, threw that thought out of his head and kept walking.   
  
He then walked up to the good old theatre room and looked around. There was a Bendy plush on one of the chairs. He knew Joey was going to make the dolls on a far later date as to when he left, but he never thought he would see one with his own eyes. “I’m definitely taking this with me,” if the studio really was abandoned then no one would miss this right?   
  
Henry then walked back out into the old main hall and looked at the door from around the corner of the ink machine. It was slightly open. Henry knew for a very good fact that it was locked before.  
He pushed it open and looked inside. It was a break room. He walked down the stairs and was greeted to tables full of old film tapes and books. He looked to his right and saw a dart board.  
  
Henry smiled and walked up to it and pulled the darts out, “don’t mind if I do,” Henry said.  
He walked back to a reasonable space and started throwing, he threw all three of them and got perfect bullseyes. “Yes!” Henry said cheering for himself a bit.   
He looked over to a table that had a lot of books on it and looked at them. Some were ones he knew, and some were foreign to him. But one caught his attention. It was a black book with gold written on it, and it said ‘The illusion of living, by Joey Drew’. Henry couldn’t help but snicker to himself, Joey was many things but a story writer was not one of them. He opened it to the first page and began reading.  
  
It was a hundred present, not a storybook, it wasn’t even related to the cartoon. It was about how this odd ink worked and how it could be bent to do what you want if you put it in the right places. By the third chapter Henry closed the book and took it with him, he wanted to read it when he got home.   
He walked out of the room and looked to his left, there was a door with a light under it and he could hear faint music coming from it. When he came near it the music and light turned off in unison.  
  
Henry jumped back a bit then stared at the door. He waited for something to happen but nothing came, he opened the door and peaked his head in. No one was there.   
‘This can seriously not be right’. Henry thought ‘someone had to have been in here for the music to stop and the light to turn off’. He looked around and found under the table, a copy of the lighter side of hell. Henry never got one when Sammy gave one to all of his close co-workers, he said that he wanted to give Henry the special version but he never got it. So he took the normal one in front of him. “Let’s listen to your greatest music soon old friend.”  
  
Something then just clicked in Henry’s head. If the studio did shut down, then why hasn’t he heard from anyone yet? He knew Wally didn’t live too far from him, and neither did Joey. So how come after 30 years he has never heard from anyone yet.  
When he came back from world war one, so many people would tell him that people from his old workplace had gone missing, but he would immediately then ignore them when they said the studio was haunted, and disregard any information that they had just told him.   
  
Henry walked back to the room with the pedestals and looked at the pictures along the walls.  
He gave them a good look and he realized the things pictures were the things he had been picking up around the studio.  
He placed the items he had on the little pillars and looked at the final two, an inkwell and a gear. Henry walked back to the ink machine and grabbed the gear out from the trunk he found the dry-cell in, he then walked back to the room that was next to his desk and grabbed an inkwell from there.  
  
He placed them on the finale pedestals and looked at the flow button next to the leaver. He still needed the flow then he could turn on the ink machine, he did see a corner in the theatre room that looked awfully suspicious. So he began his long walk back there.  
As he walked down its hallway a Bendy cut out from the end jumped out at him and then retreated back behind the corner. “AH!” Henry gave a quick yell.  
  
He then took the most exaggerated slow steps he’s ever taken towards the corner that turned into the theatre room, he looked to his right and saw that a Bendy cut out that he was very sirtuin was not there before was leaning against the wall. “Who is in here?! I know your somewhere!” Henry yelled, but he was only greeted back with his echo.   
He walked through the rows of chairs and walked up to the projector, it then turned on and started playing a film. On the screen was Bendy doing a little whistle and dancing to its tune. Next to the projector on the wall was a button that said ‘Flow’. He pressed it then heard a creak.  
  
An ink pipe that was above the doorway burst, and it started flooding the room. Henry ran out under the pipe and got drenched in ink. “I’m now regretting wearing a white tank top,” Henry said as he walked down the hall and back to the room with the pedestals.   
He then heard something thumping in the pipes, it sounded loud and heavy, but he passed it off as the ink just coming back to the pipes.   
  
Once he was finally back in the room again, he walked up to the leaver and pulled it down.  
The atmosphere then changed to something of dread, he could feel his stomach suddenly weigh a tone as it knotted in on itself. He then finally got the attention that he should leave and now.  
But before that, he wanted to take the items he found back with him, but when he turned back to the pedestals all of the items were gone.  
  
So instead he might just check on the ink machine again. He walked back down the halls slowly… he could feel his mind screaming at him to just go to the exit and never come back, but a foreign feeling told him to keep walking. He would often have foreign feelings back in his war days, and when he listened to them, he would normally kick the shit out of whoever was unfortunate enough to be in front of him.   
But this was far different. What would be a feeling of adrenalin, was one of panic and dread.  
  
He came to the hall of the ink machine but noticed something very wrong. Footprints of ink walked out from the room of the ink machine and into the break room, which said room’s door was now closed and locked. Henry gulped deeply and walked up to the ink machine.  
  
But something then set all kinds of alarms off in Henry’s head as he saw that the doorway was boarded up.   
He slowly walked up and tried to peek inside the room. He managed to see that the ink machine was on and pumping ink.  
But then a black figure jumped up to the wooden planks and swiped its hand at Henry. “AHH!” Henry yelled. He fell flat on his rear and then got up, and started sprinting for the exit.   
  
The floor began to flood with ink, and the walls had this vain like pattern moving across them made out of ink. “I need to get out of here!” Henry yelled as he kept sprinting. The further he got to the exit the more ink cover him to clear up to his chest.  
He turned the corner tightly and saw that the exit was open, and he could see the light of day. He was just about to grab the handle when the floor under him gave way and he fell. He hit many pipes on his way down and then landed in a pool of ink.  
  
He carefully put his legs under him and stood up. He saw a valve in front of him and turned it, the ink drained away and he was left with ink dripping on his head from the higher level. He looked to his right and saw an audio log on a shelf, he walked over and pressed play.  
  
 _"It's dark and it's cold and it's stuck in behind every single wall now. In some places, I swear this godforsaken ink is clear up to my knees!_ Who ever _thought that these crummy pipes could hold up under this kind of strain either knows something about_ pressure _I don't, or he's some kind of idiot. But the real worst part about all this.. are them noises the system makes. Like a dying dog on its last legs. Make no mistake, this place... this... machine... heck, this whole darn thing... it just isn't natural. You can bet, I won't be doing any more repair jobs for Mister Joey Drew."_  
  
Thomas Connor.  
That was a name Henry never heard before. Joey must have hired him after he left. He was right about one thing, it's definitely dark and cold here.  
  
Henry walked on and went down the next flight of stairs, where he was once again, greeted in ink. He turned the next valve that he saw, and kept walking as the level of the ink immediately dropped. Then came the finale as he walked to a level with a door.  
This ink was clear up to his neck as he practically swam through it. He got to the finale valve and turned it, the level of the ink drained instantly.  
  
Henry walked through the door and was greeted to a room with a fire ax in it. “This will definitely come in handy,” He said as he smacked the ax against his open palm.  
He saw a boarded-up doorway in front of him, ‘time to see if I’ve gotten soft’. Henry thought as he raised the ax and brought it down with force to break the wood.  
  
He broke away enough wood to walk through, and he was greeted with a small hall filled with planks. He chopped away at the wood as he pressed on, not wanting to stay here.  
He turned a corner and was greeted to a door boarded up, he cut away at the planks and opened the door.  
  
But the second he did, he felt really scared all of a sudden. He began to shake violently, hardly aboul to hold his ax. His vision became slightly blurry as he stepped forward.  
He walked into a room with a pentagram in it surrounded by candles, and three coffins. Two standing up against the wall, in front of the pentagram, and another on the floor just off to the side.  
  
Henry trudged forward not aboul to keep his balance, as he started to feel really tired. He then walked into the pentagram and saw three things.  
A piece of paper with a pink star drawn on it.  
A jewelry box.  
And a bullet dripping blood.  
Henry felt his eyes roll back into his head as he felt oddly light. He passed out and landed with a thud on the floor.


	3. Pre-story (Ch: 1 / Part: 2)

_**(I’m here) – pt. 2**_  
  
  
Henry heard a ringing in his ear and his vision was blurred. “Oh, my head… what happened?” He shakenly stood up with a little fumble and struggle. He looked around and saw that he was in a room with coffins and he was in the middle of a pentagram.   
His memories then came back from what had happened and what he was doing here. “Oh… now I remember,” Henry said.  
  
“Well, I guess there’s only one thing to do. Press on. See if I can find a way out,” He said reaching out to grab the axe he had before from off the floor. He then noticed his hands; his fingers were covered in ink all the way to his palm. “Ah…” Henry softly let out, not happy that the ink was sticking to him. He used his tank top to try and wipe it off a bit but nothing came off, not even the white fabric showed that anything was coming off, the only thing that came from it were sore hands.   
  
He walked back to the doorway he came from and looked around the corner. The way he came was not an option, the ceiling had caved in. He had no other option but to go through the other door. He walked back to the room with the coffins and walked to the door beside them. He lifted the axe above his head and threw it down with all his might. All the planks that were on it shattered like thin twigs. “Whoa… I knew I was strong, but not that strong,” Henry said as he looked down the stairs.  
  
A board from the ceiling fell and landed in front of him. He was honestly not that scared anymore of that one.  
He reached the bottom of the stairs and right in front of him was what looked like a little shrine, he couldn’t tell who it was for, but he saw that oddly enough that there was a banjo right to the side of it. He plucked its strings a little then looked to his right.  
There was another shrine only this one had an audio log on it. He walked over and pressed play.  
  
 _“He appears from the shadows to rain his sweet blessings upon me. The figure of ink that shines in the darkness. I see you, my saviour. I pray you hear me. Those old songs, yes, I still sing them. For I know you are coming to save me. And I will be swept into your final loving embrace. But, love requires sacrifice. Can I get an amen?”_  
Henry felt his stomach jump at the voice, he knew who that was. That was Sammy Lawrence, he was one of Henry’s best friends during his times at the studio, each of them respected what type of art they did, even though they considered it two completely separate things like night and day.  
  
Henry giggled at his old memories and was about to turn around when he heard- “I said: can I get an amen?”   
Henry spun around on his toes and had his axe raised and ready to attack, he was expecting someone to be there, but no one was.  
“Hello?” Henry asked into the studio. He was greeted with silence.   
He took a few cautious steps forward and looked around, checking behind himself and looking to his left and right. He saw two coffins in a pentagram and next to them was a switch box with a lit candle on top. Henry was officially going to sign the contract to have this place knocked down when he got out of here.  
  
He kept walking cautiously as he entered a hall, and the first thing he sees is a Bendy cut out in a pentagram. “Nope.” Henry says raising his axe and bringing it down on the cutout,  _‘not her characters’_ He thought as he moved on down the hall.  
To his right, he saw a massive stone Bendy statue with a few candles at its feet on a platform it was raised on. He looked to his left and saw the next hall he was supposed to walk down, it was flooded with ink but he didn’t care. He stepped into the ink and started fighting through it.   
  
When he was halfway to the end a man covered in ink, wearing brown overalls and holding a Bendy cut out, walked in front of him from the next hall. Coming from one side and walking to the other out of sight.  
“Excuse me! Hello?! C-can you help me?” Henry yelled as he walked out of the ink flooded hall and into a cleaner one. He followed him around the corner, only to see another cut out in a pentagram and a shelf stocked-full of bacon soup. “Where the hell did he go?” Henry asked as there was no way he could have just disappeared or gone straight through a wall. Could he?  
  
Henry raised his axe again and brought it down on the Bendy cut out once more. Then turned around and walked down the new hall. To his right was another stone, unpainted Bendy statue. And to his left was a shutter door.   
“I need to get power to this gate somehow. Should be a couple of switches nearby. Then maybe I can open it.” Henry said out loud.  
He did admit he had that habit of talking to himself. Especially through world war 2 just before he saved Aleksei.  
Without anyone he knew to go with him that time, he started talking to himself when he knew he was alone.  
  
Henry turned around and started looking along the walls for switches. When he turned completely back around to face the (*what he thought) broken cut out, he saw it fixed and standing back up in the pentagram. Henry stared at the cut out with his pupils the size of peas.  
He took a deep gulp and carefully took small steps towards the piece of cardboard and looked along the shelf of bacon soup it was next to. He spotted a little light behind the cans and moved the necessary ones out the way and it revealed a switch for the shutter door. He flicked it and kept on backtracking.   
  
He walked back all the way to the room with Sammy’s audio log and found the last two switches. He flicked them both on and walked back down the halls to the door, and pulled down the leaver.  
He was 110% done with that little hallway shenanigan. Bendy cut-outs fixing themselves and standing back up the second he looked away was not in his book for creepy today.   
  
He walked through the door and came up to another boarded up doorway. He brought down his axe again and chopped off all of them in one go, again. “I have got to tell Linda about this and show off to Aleksei,” Henry said walking through. He then noticed the sudden absence of lighting. There were no lit candles in this area but it was bright enough for him to read a sign in front of him saying “MUSIC DEPARTMENT”.  
Henry gasped in sharply as he now knew where he was. If he just walled back from the storage halls that he was not allowed to go into then the next door to his right should be an exit. Henry speed walked out to the doorway next to him and looked down the stairs.   
  
His happiness and smile dropped from his face when he saw ink at the bottom of the stairs. That didn’t stop him though. He walked to the bottom and splashed through the ink and tried to open the door. He could feel something blocking it from the other side and let go of the doorknob.  
It sprang back into place with a little shake and Henry looked down at it. He slowly lifted his head up to the exit sign with hurt in his eyes. He then quickly drew back his fist and punched the door. It left a small crater out of thin little cracks in the wood. “Goddammit…” Henry said nearly crying. He wanted out, NOW!  
  
Henry drooped his hand from the door exaggeratedly, slowly enough to notice his hands again. The ink that stained and seemed to stick to his fingers was now halfway up his four arms. How did he not notice that?! And let alone he didn’t dip his hands in any ink puddles or anything. But when he looked closer to the end of his fingers he noticed that they sort of ended in a triangle.   
He pushed all that aside and climbed back up the stairs, flicking on the light switch for the department. When he was two steps away from the doorway a massive splash of ink came from the ceiling and landed in front of the music department sign. A human figure raised from the puddle, making a gasp for air as if it had been drowning. It was a masculine figure made entirely of ink and it had no legs, it just moved its hips and used its arms to move around.  
  
It looked at Henry and made a loud sound, “HrRAA!!” It charged at Henry as best it could. But he was frozen to the spot. Henry was shaking and terrified of what was in front of him as it reminded him of a past war memory. While near the end of World War 2 on his night round. He and Aleksei found a guy who had his legs blown off past his hips and some of his intestines were dragging behind him as he crawled on his elbows back to their trenches, crying the whole way, his face just red and his eyes so watery they were glowing in the moonlight.  
Henry was panicking and hallucinating as he saw the ink creature crawl toward him.  
  
The creature launched itself at Henry knocking him over. Henry came back to his senses and quickly jumped up. He raised his axe over his shoulder and swung the blade at the monsters head like a baseball bat. The creature instantly lost its form and turned into a normal splash of ink. Henry smiled at himself feeling a sudden major accomplishment. But it was short lived as another three identical to the last came out from separate puddles and all started rushing him. Henry cut them all down and heaved a few breaths as they stopped coming out of the puddles.  
  
He then heard a gramophone flare to life as he looked around the room. The shutter door across from the recording studio opened up and revealed the hall to the organ, medical ward and Sammy’s office.  
Once Henry gathered himself he noticed a recording next to the department's sign, and it said Sammy’s name on it.  
 _"So first Joey installs this Ink Machine over our heads. Then it begins to leak. Three times last month, we couldn't even get out of our department because the ink had flooded the stairwell. Joey's solution? An ink pump to drain it periodically. Now I have this ugly pump switch right in my office. People in and out all day. Thanks, Joey. Just what I needed. More distractions. These stupid cartoon songs don't write themselves, you know."_    
  
Henry was suddenly very confused. Sammy never talked smack about his work. And when he was leaving he knew Joey was hiring this G.E.N.T Company to help with the pipes, so why was Sammy also complaining about there being flooding?  
But another thing about what Sammy said was that there was a pump switch in his office that could drain the ink in the stairwell. Henry lit up with happiness once again and speed walked down to the hall up to Sammy’s office. Except there were two pipes spraying ink like a sprinkler onto the door. Henry’s mood immediately shifted back to grim as he growled under his breath. And he didn’t want to smash the glass of Sammy’s office because for all he knew his best friend was still missing and thought dead, so he wanted to keep his respect for his friend.   
  
He saw to his left on the wall that there was another audio log, but the label of the name was partly covered in ink, so it read “Wally Fr-”. Henry realized that it was another of Wally’s audio’s so he pressed play.  
 _"So I go to get my dustpan from the hall closet the other day and guess what? I can't find my stupid keys. It's like they disappeared into thin air or something. All I can think of is that they must have fallen in one of the garbage cans as I was making my rounds last week. I just hope nobody tells Sammy. Because if he finds out I lost my keys again, I'm outta here."_  Wally’s voice spoke out to Henry as he listened close. He then realized that the keys for the closet to his right should be in a trash can. He knows he’s already walked past a few. And so the search began.  
  
He looked into all the trash cans until he came to the can closest to the recording studio doors. As Henry tossed them in the air and then caught them smiling he then realized something while looking down at the silver in his hand. Why hadn’t Wally every come back for them? Maybe that was the time he went missing? No that can’t be right, everyone in this studio went missing as the same time, and Wally recorded that audio log a week after he dropped them in the trash, so he and everyone else in the studio could have gone missing in that time span. Henry walked back to Wally’s audio log and checked behind it to see the date it was recorded. 3rd of November 1916. “Well, I can tell the police that it must have happened around then,” Henry said placing the audio log back and walking over to the closet.  
  
He opened the door and found a few bacon soup cans also another audio log. He pressed play.  _"Every artistic person needs a sanctuary. Joey Drew has his and I've got mine. To enter, you need only know my favourite song. The banjo playfully clucks. The violin shudders with a piercing voice. The drum thunders in triumph. The bass fiddle sings with deep articulation. Sing my song and my sanctuary will open to you."_  Sammy’s voice played through the small plastic.  
Henry is definitely not the type to call insane or over the top theories on the spot, but the way how Sammy has been talking so far, honestly made him sound like a sort of cult leader.  
  
But what in the world did Sammy mean by that? He remembered all of those instruments were in the recording room as part of their orchestra. And he faintly remembers certain people playing those instruments that stood out in the music department. Sammy was always on the banjo. Jack Fain, the lyricist of all the songs would call the violin. Dumaka Jelani was Sammy’s servant, he was biracial of black and white having white splashes of skin clime over his chest, hands and ears the rest of him was black. His mother was shipped from Mozambique in the southeast coast of Africa and his father was from Ireland so the shade difference in his skin was very noticeable. But Sammy did let him beat at that drum like its music was gold running through his blood. And Norman Polk would work the bass on occasion, he was biracial as well but had far more white skin on him that Dumaka. 55% of him was whiter so he had official rights just like a normal white. But that still didn’t mean he got shit.   
  
Henry walked out of the closet and came back to the main entrance and walked up the stairs to the projector both. There he found a working projector and an audio log next to it. The audio read Norman Polk and was dated 25th of November 1916.  
 _"Every day the same strange thing happens, I'll be up here in my booth, the band will be swinging, and suddenly Sammy Lawrence just comes marching in and shuts the whole thing down. Tells us all to wait in the hall. Then I hears him. He starts up my projector, and he dashes from the projection booth and down to the recording studio like the little devil himself was chasing behind. Few seconds later, the projector turns off. But Sammy, oh no, he don't come out for a long time. This man is weird. Crazy weird. I got half a mind to talk to Mr. Drew about all this, I really do. But then again, I have to admit. Mr. Drew's got his own peculiarities."_  Norman’s voice played through the little speakers.  
  
Sammy stopping the song in the middle of recording? Pushing out everyone? And staying in there for possibly a few hours at a time for no real reason? That settled it, something was so very wrong with Sammy. He would never interrupt a recording, he would never be so commando to a point he tells the whole orchestra to get out the room, and he would never act so panicky. He would always be the exact opposite of all that. What was going wrong with this place?  
  
Henry then got the possible idea that that’s what Sammy meant when he said “sanctuary”.  
Henry turned on the projector and ran back down to the main area and jogged into the recording studio and played the instruments that Sammy listed in that audio. Banjo, violin, drum, bass. The projector turned off with a loud click that echoed through the department and the storage room next to all the instruments opened its shutter door. Henry slowly walked in and walked down a small hall with two rows of shelves and turned the corner.  
  
What Henry saw made him very, very uneasy. There was a desk with a banjo leaning against its leg and a Bendy plush on top and a stool in front of it, and it was in the middle of a pentagram just like the ones he’s been seeing around the department. But above the desk on the wall were some very scary words. – “Sing a happy song. Whistle a merry tune. Wait for his arrival. He’s coming very soon.” Henry turned the valve next to the desk and walked out of their as quick as he could.  
  
When he walked out. He saw the same person from before, who walked in front of him from the hall before he walked into the main part of the department. He was looking down at him from the walled-off both next to Normans. Henry arched his head to the side in confusion. The man was made entirely of ink and had four fingers also wearing a Bendy head cutout as a mask. “Uh…” Henry said looking up at the man.  
  
He then heard multiple splashes and groans. He looked away from the man and saw a hoard of those half-bodied-ink-monsters coming his way. He’d say their looked to be around ten or seven.  
Henry raised his axe like some sort of broad sword over his shoulder and swang it at the first monster that came to close. He then got overpowered very easily, having those monsters knock him to the ground and pummel him like the bully cliché of a group of people kicking the one guy cowering on the floor. Henry tried to swing his axe at one that was trying to grab his throat, but he lost his grip and the axe went flying onto the wall.   
  
Which then left Henry defenceless. As a last desperate move, Henry tried to punch the monster choking him, but he instead clawed at it. He slashed its face, his fingers pushing into its body like butter.   
The creature let go of Henry’s neck and backed away holding its face in pain. “HurRAAAHAAAA!!!” Henry swiped and scratched at the other monsters and they got off him, he then ran over to his axe that was stuck in the wall and gave it a mighty yank and it came out roughly with a few splinters. He then let out a battle cry as he chopped all the monsters in the head one at a time.   
  
Once he was done he fell to his knees and heaved in the air to his sore lungs. He looked back up to the other both and saw that the man was still there. Henry crossed his brows at the man and stood back up.  
He held his axe further down the handle and raised it above his head. He then threw it at the man, it would have hit him square in the head if he didn’t dodge. “Come down here and fight me like a man!!” Henry yelled at him. The man only picked up Henry’s axe and walked off with it. “COWARD!!” Henry yelled.  
  
Henry ran his hand through his hair tiredly and then looked at the pair.   
The stubborn ink was now over his elbows and his fingers were turned into sharp claws. To say he was defenceless would not be entirely true.   
Henry sighed and walked exaggeratedly back to Sammy’s office. He stopped once he came up to the infirmary.  
The ink that flooded the room was now gone. Henry walked down to see what had happened. The room had some massive puddles in it that was definitely a no brainer. But all the furniture was not even drenched in ink.   
  
Henry walked down the stairs a little and an ink-monster came out of one of the puddles. It started charging at him and he slashed it with his new claws not even taking a step back. “Been there, did that,” Henry said as he walked closer to the bed. He looked around and saw that nothing else was here. But yet he still took note of the lever and pipe at the end of the bed. But with nothing else to do, he turned back around and walked back up to Sammy’s office. He needed to show Linda and Aleksei what this ink was and what it was doing to him and he needed to talk to Sammy’s sister Sara about what might have happened when he went missing.  
  
Henry arrived back at the door but found that one pipe had stopped spraying ink but the other was still acting as if it were a sprinkler. Henry smacked his face hard leaving a red handprint. He was going to go for a long walk for a few days after he got out of here.   
He then remembered the lever and pipe. He realized that a valve could be put on that pipe and it would be right underneath the pipe that was still leaking in front of Sammy’s office. Henry speed walked back down to the infirmary and started turning the room upside down looking for a valve.  
  
When he looked around the pipe itself he hit his head on the lever and pushed it up. That then lifted the shutter door around the corner from the stairs and it led further down.  
Henry never once came to the studio’s infirmary so he didn’t know what was down there. He cautiously took slow steps down the stairs with his hands raised in a talon look, ready to cut the first thing that came to close for his liking. He came to the bottom and looked directly to his left seeing fence wire block off an area and at the end of the hall behind the wire was the shadow of the man from before.   
  
Henry suddenly wanted to tear into the wire and come charging at the man, but he held his temper and looked to his right. Now he knew where he was, this was the ink sewers that ran under the music department. This was where Jack would work and write the lyrics for the songs.  
  
Henry looked back at the dry part he was still standing on and gave the small area a thorough look through before stepping into the ink. His feet slushed around in the dark liquid as he walked around a corner. He came to a stop when he saw another one of those ink-monsters behind some wooden planks.   
But this one looked different from the others. Is had a bowler hat on and it was twice the size of a normal one, it looked a little like a hunch-back. But it was holding the valve he needed.  
  
He slowly walked towards it with his new claws spread. But instead of attacking him it dived into the ink and disappeared, the exact opposite to what the other ones do. ‘Maybe this one is the odd one out?’ Henry thought.   
Henry jumped over the planks and continued to walk down the sewer. He soon turned another corner and saw a raised place out of the ink to the side. Henry walked closer and looked up at it. It was Jack’s old desk.  
  
Henry was about to step up to it when he stood on a music piece of paper floating in the ink he looked down at his feet. There were a few scattered peace's around just floating. Henry got up to the platform and looked down from where Jack would sit. More signs of a struggle.  
Jack was really scared by something to, but what? Henry didn’t know but he wished he did. An audio log was on the desk and he pressed play.  
  
 _"I love the quiet, and that's hard to come by these busy times. And yeah sure it may stink to high heaven down here. But it's just perfect for an old lyricist like me. Sammy's songs always got some bounce, but if I didn't get away once in a while, they'd never have any words to go with them. So I'll keep my mind a-singin' and my nose closed."_  This audio was made 5th of November 1916 so it was still around World War 1 when this was recorded, so it would make sense for Jack to say- “these busy times”.   
Henry heard a light grown to his left and quickly turned his head expecting one of those hostile monsters to be there. But instead, it was that bowler-hatted one again. Henry went to reach out to it but it immediately ducked back into the ink.  
  
Henry sighed and sat on the ledge dipping his feet in the ink holding Jack’s audio. He didn’t care about getting his feet wet now. He played the audio again and listened to it. It was the first good log he’s heard since he came down here so he wanted some clarity to see that this place still had some odd hope in it. When the audio ended with its click he heard gentle pushing of water and to his right and was greeted again by the same passive ink creature.   
  
It slowly moved toward him and looked down at the audio log in his lap. It looked up at Henry then back down to the tap gesturing for him to press it again. Henry pressed the play button again and the audio ended again with the same click. The creature looked at it with almost a sad expression. Henry then got an idea to talk to the creature they did seem smart at least.  
“Did you know him?” Henry asked. The creature looked up at him then pointed to the name on the tape then back at itself.   
  
It then clicked to Henry that this could be Jack himself, and now that he remembered, Jack did often were a yellow bowler hat. “Jacket?” Henry asked.   
It was a thing with Jack that the whole studio knew. Jack would never wear a jacket or any sort of coat even on the coldest days so they would often call him Jacket. The creature cocked its head to the side and then said. “Henrry?” Henry slowly pulled a smile. It had been 30 years for christ sake since he saw anyone from his old workplace. Jack then jumped out of the ink and hugged Henry tightly around his waist. “Wrrr… ha… hue… been? It’ssss been ayges.” Jack said holding onto Henry almost for dear life. “I’m sorry. I’ve just been… stuck… for a while now” Henry said gently placing his hand on Jack’s back, he was as cold as ice in water but Henry didn’t mind.   
  
“What happened to you? What happened here? Where is everyone else?” The few million dollar questions were asked out loud, and Henry waited for Jack to respond. “It wasss nearing the middle of Novvvember when thisss tall, lanky, Bendy ccame out frrommm the hall to Joey’sss office. It had thiss aura when you gott tto clossse, ink would ssstart to cover you and you would tuurn into a few ssselected thingss in the ssstudio. All ttthe exxxitss locked before anyone could get out. Ssso tthey ran down to the lower levelsss, but ttthey all eventually got trrapped in a corner with no way to go. And now everyone in the ssstudio is an ink tthing.” Jack said talking through his slurred lips.   
  
Henry took all of this in at once and understood it completely. The only thing he could do was look down at his old friend. “I’m surprised you even recognize me,” Henry said. “It wasss a little hard… but I remembered how you pronounccced my nickname,” Jack said slowly letting go of Henry and just looking up at him from his friend's lap.   
“How did this happen to you though?” Henry asked. “I wasss doing my work when a horde of people came running down. And ttthen I ssaw tthat Bendy. It picked me up by my neck and llifted me clean off the ffloor, tthen all thisss ink came flooding out of my mouthhh. And now I look like ttthisss.” Jack said.  
Henry took in his friend’s new size. He was small compared to him. It honestly made him look kind of cute.  
  
“Hey, you want to come back with me? If you hand me the valve I can drain the ink from the stairway and we can get out of here.” Henry said. “Ttthat would be amazing! But, how would you keep me at your place?” Jack asked. That was a good point. “I could put you in a little kid-y pool,” Henry said. “Kid-y… pool?” Jack asked. Right, it had been 30 years Jack wouldn’t know what that is. “It’s a little blow-up pool for toddlers. Just fill it with ink and you would be set to go.” Jack seemed to pull a frown. “Hey, it’s either that or the bathtub or sink. And I bet you don’t want to be there when I or Linda have to take a shower.” Henry said. Jack flinched then nodded quickly.  
  
Jack then had a concerned look on his face and looked around. “Howw did you sstay away ffrom Sssammy for tthiss long?” Jack asked. “Sammy? I’ve heard his audio logs around. But I haven’t seen him. Or now that you told me I’m guessing he’s a creature like you.” Henry said. “I’m called a sssearcher. To be ssspecific I’m a sswollen one. And Sssammy doessn’t look like me. He lookss human withhh a Bendy cut out ffor a masssk.” Jack said.  
That suddenly made Henry’s stomach drop. “With four fingers and wearing nothing but overalls?” Henry asked. “Yeah, oh… I guesss you have run into him.” Jack said with an equal amount of fear Henry had.  
  
Henry swallowed a lump in his throat and picked up Jack, holding him with one arm and started to walk out the sewer. “So, tell me what a searcher is exactly,” Henry said. “A sssearcher iss a ttthiner versssion of me. And tthey walk around on tthier handss.” Henry’s face told a look of realisation as he kept waking with Jack in his arms like holding a child, but Henry had to admit. Even though he was made of ink, he felt so huggable.  
  
Henry pushed the valve Jack had, back to its rightful spot and then walked into Sammy’s office and flipped the switch down and heard the ink in the stairway drain. He then looked to Sammy’s desk and walked over.  
“Are these the blueprints for the old ink machine?” Henry asked jack. “Yeah, don’t knoww wwhy Sssammy would be keeping tthem tthough.” Jack said.  
Henry then flipped on the radio next to the prints and took a listen. One of Sammy’s old songs played through the speakers. Build our machine. It was one of the first long, major songs Sammy ever did. Henry let the song play as he walked off down the hall with Jack being held.  
  
Once Henry got to Sammy’s really old audio log he was suddenly then hit upside the head. “Henry!” Jack yelled as he fell a little away from the old man. Normal searchers held him down while Sammy loomed over Henry saying a little song he had kept on singing ever since he started to see Bendy as some sort of god. “Rest your head, its time for bed.”   
  
Henry woke back up tied to a post in the middle of a pentagram and looking into the masked eyes of his old friend and boss to the music department Samuel Lawrence.  
“There we go now, nice and tight. We wouldn’t want are sheep roaming away now, would we? No, we wouldn’t. I must admit I am honoured you came all the way down here to visit me. It all most makes what I’m about to do seem cruel.” Sammy said. He then walked away from Henry and placed the axe that he had before against a pole of wood. “But the believers must honour their saviour. I must have him notice me.” Sammy said as he walked back and faced Henry. “Wait, you look familiar to me… that face…” Sammy said.  
  
Henry’s mind suddenly caught up to what’s happening and talked to Sammy. “Sammy it’s me, Henry! I know I’ve gotten older and have a few battle scars but come on!” Henry said as he looked at his old co-worker. “You do have some earned markings. It is rare to see someone with those up this high.” Sammy said. “And if I’m not mistaken. You look like an invise.” Sammy said. “What the heck is an ‘invise’?” Henry asked. “You are, but invise’s are meant to be non-existent. Yet I see one right in front of me. The Lord will definitely love to have your ink added to his body.” Sammy said.  
Oh god, he is not joking around, is he? Sammy was once many things, but when it came to jokes he was just as bad as Joey.  
  
“Wait, Sammy, I’m sure we can talk about this,” Henry said. “Silence!” Sammy shouted. “Not now. For our Lord is calling to us my little sheep.” Did he just call Henry “his little sheep”… yeah, Sammy has definitely lost his mind. “The time of sacrifice is at hand! And then I will be soon freed from this… prison. This inky… dark… abbess, I call a body.” Sammy ranted. “Sammy if you help me get out of here I could bring you to a doctor and they could fix you. You don’t need a gods help with that.” Henry said.  
  
But it looked like it fell onto deaf ears as Sammy kept going. “Shhhhh… quiet! Listen! I can hear him, crawling above. Crawling! Let us begin. The ritual must be completed! Soon he will hear me… he will set us free.” Sammy finished as he walked toward a door.   
“No! Sammy! You don’t need him for help! Please, Samuel, this is not like you! PLEASE!” Henry yelled struggling to break free of the ropes.   
Henry kept on struggling as Sammy sang something that fell deaf to Henry’s adrenalin filled ears. It wasn’t until the shutter door in front of him opened that he started listening to Sammy continue to rant off. But it quickly turned into a scream as Sammy got attacked by “Bendy”.  
  
Henry finally snapped the ropes and booked it for the door Sammy disappeared into. “Sammy! SAMMY!!” Henry yelled, slamming his fist on the door. He then heard a splash as he realized ink was coming out from under the door. Henry covers his mouth and nearly fell to his knees with water starting to come into his eyes.  
Sammy was one of Henry’s best friends next to Joey. And now he just got killed by something that was possibly his fault.   
  
But he knew he couldn’t stay where he was. So he got up and sprinted out of the room and weaved around the broken boards that blocked his path. Not even bothering with his old axe. On his way through the hall, he looked to his right and saw the ink machine being lowered down. He then kept going once it was out of his sight.   
Henry saw another door in front of him, with a bit of an ink floor in front of it that said “EXIT”. Henry sprinted towards the door but stopped when “Bendy” raised out of the ink and looked around.  
  
Henry slipped and landed on his butt in the ink out of shock. “Bendy” heard the thud and splash and then tried to grab Henry. Henry quickly got up and started running in the opposite direction. He turned down to his right and ran down that hall since he knew that way he just came would make him cornered.   
Henry turned tightly around a few corners and then ran to a door. He walked through and slammed the door shut, barricading it with barrels and crates as he listened to see if “Bendy” would try to knock it down.  
  
He heard the ink demon slam his fists in a little. And call Henry crazy by this point, but he could have sworn he heard it say- “Let me in, let me make it right!”   
Henry heard the thing moan with defeat and then walk away with squishy sounding footsteps.  
Henry’s world suddenly turned dark as he took a second to gather his thoughts. Sammy just tried to kill him and nearly succeeded, while also getting himself killed. He had no idea where Jack was, but he assumed the worst. And finally, his sister’s character had been brought to life and was out for his blood.  
  
Henry fell to his knees and started to ball tears. He sat there sobbing for what felt like hours. He also noticed his hands had grown in size a little and his shoes had turned black and grew in size too, making him look like some sort of odd clown. But he eventually picked himself back up and with still watery eyes and a runny nose he walked into the next room.  _‘Joey…’_  Henry thought. _‘Why did you send me here?...’._  
Henry opened the door to the next room and saw a bacon soup can roll his way along with the sound of footsteps. “Hello? Is someone there? I know you’re in here… come out and show yourself…” Henry said with a slight quiver in his voice.  
  
What was followed by a few footsteps was Boris the Wolf, holding a makeshift bag full of bacon soup cans. Henry stared at Boris, and Boris looked right back.  
  
“Boris?” Henry asked very surprised to see the cartoon wolf he thought was dead on the upper levels. “Yeah…?” Boris said back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> plz be patient with me for the next part and if you are a fan of batim then you will know why


End file.
